The Arts Centre, owned by the town council, recently secured a grant of £354,000 from Arts Council England for the project, which is expected to cost about £475,000. Recently the British Film Institute gave a small grant from their neighbourhood community fund to provide one of the rooms with projection equipment, which will allow for seminars and screenings of specialist films. Friends of the Arts Centre have pledged to support the project, but the town council and Arts Centre still need to find about £100,000.

Consequently, the town council is aiming to take out a £100,000 loan from the Public Works Board.

Town clerk Richard Wood said: “Since moving to the old courthouse in 2006 we [town council] have been paying East Riding Council £5,000 per annum to pay for modernisation work they carried out. This amount is now fully paid. Consequently the taking out of a further loan will not increase the precept.”

He added: “We have wanted to carry this work out for years to make the building structurally sound and bring all of the building back into use, we now have the chance at little cost to the precept payers.”

Work continues on preparing the specification documents to be issued to building contractors for quotes for the scheme.

As part of the project, the front and rear of the building at first floor level will be joined by roofing in the middle section providing space for the bar to be relocated and the rooms being refurbished.

Mr Wood said: “We are having drawings of the new works prepared and will organise an open morning to show people what we intend to do.”

Work is expected to start in early autumn and completed by the end of March next year.

In order to use the funding from Arts Council England, building work for the project needs to be completed before the end of March 2016.